[LINK] Green light for internet filter plans
rene
rene.lk at libertus.net
Wed Dec 16 22:56:25 AEDT 2009
On Wed, 16 Dec 2009 12:11:10 +0100, Kim Holburn wrote:
> Whatever they do in the event this passes both houses (it's not going
> to be just done via regulation without a parliamentary bill is it?)
Apparently not, unless the govt changes its mind or something yet again.
Conroy's media release yesterday said:
"The Government will introduce legislative amendments to the Broadcasting
Services Act to require all ISPs to block RC-rated material hosted on
overseas servers."
http://www.minister.dbcde.gov.au/media/media_releases/2009/115
> is not clear yet but in the Enex report it says:
>
>> Pass-by filters
>>
>> A pass-by filter does not require all traffic to pass through the
>> filter. Pass-by filters
>> comprise two types: hybrid and port mirroring. Only hybrid pass-by
>> technology was used in this trial.
>>
>
> ... blah blah blah ...
>
>> Most commonly the action by a filter is a
>> block-page being returned to the end-user, otherwise the traffic is
>> allowed to pass on and the site returned to the user.
Yes, that is the case if an ISP chooses to buy, implement, and pay annual
licence fees to use a filter product, because probably all commercial
filter products do return a "blocked by this filter product" page.
However, it is highly questionable whether large and medium sized ISPs
would end up choosing to pay for commercial products, not only because of
the cost, but because of the limitations of such products. For example, the
Marshal8e6 product says that one of its censorware boxes will (allegedly)
handle 30,000 end users. Imagine how many of those boxes Telstra, for
example, would have to install, and what they might have to do to their
network infrastructure to establish enough points at which to install the
(many) censorware boxes necessary and/or implement load balancing and so
on. Imo, that is very likely why Telstra invented a purpose built system
using DNS plus Squid proxy for their trial. It also seems very likely why
UK BT and the majority of other ISPs in the UK that have implemented
blocking (of only 'cp' material) are using purpose built systems designed
around IP address lookup + proxy. In some other EU countries (e.g. Norway),
the ISPs that are blocking are using plain DNS poisoning, i.e. blocking
whole domains (not URLs) by DNS.
It should be noted that all of the 9 ISPs in the Enex trial were only
blocking access for customers who *opted-in* to the trial, and that most of
the ISPs were very small - having only hundreds or a few thousand customers
in total, not all of whom opted in. One ISP said 15 customers opted-in. The
only large ISP was Optus and they said they were only inviting opt-in from
customers in a specific regional area.
Irene
More information about the Link
mailing list